An Adult Conversation-Are we now shame free

[Guest IM_Moore]

Has the stigma and sometimes shame of being a client vanished thanks to support groups such as M4M?

 

My impression is that in the old days their was a certain stigma attached to being a client. You either did not have the appearance or personality to be able to have a sexual encounter without paying for it. People who possessed decent looks / personality rarely would pay for sex. They would have few problems finding a quick one night stand at worse.

 

It seems as if clients are from all backgrounds now, not just the guys who could not score catagory, and hiring an escort has become an alternative to the cruising scene, bar scene, baths or other cliche gay meeting spots.

 

My feeling is we are in the midst of experiencing a social change. The past few years there seems to have been a growth in gay men using escort services. The hiring of an escort seems somewhat acceptable now.

 

So what created the cultural turn in our society of gay men? I feel AIDS indirectly has had an impact on the way we meet people and decide who we will or won't have sex with. The only other factor I have noticed is the saturation of the Internet and the sub-cultures created by its users.

 

I beleive a site like this (M4M) has had an unintentional impact on the way we view ourselves (clients) and has given us the abilty to accept the sexual needs of our lifestyle.

 

Various Internet sites have made it politically correct to use an escort (in gay culture).

 

When HooBoy had an idea to begin this site (or I should say when he stole the idea from me }> I don't believe even he could ahve imagined not only the financial reward he has received but the community that would arise from his site.

 

One of my favorite quotes is by the late Bobby Kennedy, "some men see things as they are and ask why, I dream of things that never were and say why not" As much as I disagree with HooBoy I have to give him credit (whether intentional or by accident) for having such an impact on a lifestyle that was once considered so forbidden.

 

Next week we will discuss pizza toppings and their relation to us chosing to be gay :+

[Guest happyguy]

hehehehehe You end your discourse with a very funny line! But, for what it's worth, I am relatively new to this site, and just reading more than posting, without realizing it, I do feel better about myself, knowing that there are lots of very clever and intersting people who are also clients.

[Guest pickwick]

With all due respect, I don't know of any empirical evidence to suggest that attitudes toward prostitution among gay men or in society as a whole have changed recently. This site has undoubtedly made it easier for clients and escorts to find each other. There probably are some men who but for this site would not hire escorts due to the difficulty of getting information about the quality of escorts who advertise. That's not the same as saying that people who didn't approve of prostitution have changed their minds. Before this site existed most gay men I know would consider hiring an escort for a special occasion, but believed that hiring them on a regular basis is pathological. They still have the same opinion so far as I know.

[BuckyXTC]

I'm inclined to agree with Pickwick on this one. It's a bit of a quantum leap, or wishful thinking at best, to surmise that general attitudes about prostitution have changed because of one website. It might be more accurate to say that attitudes of folks who have visited this website might be changed, but the public at large, I seriously doubt it. Attitudinal changes over "hot button issues" like escorting, prostitution, and homosexualty in general tend to happen, not by measure of months or years,but by decades. Sites like this one may help, but I think it's far too early to expect any sort of measurable results.

[Guest alanm]

The general opinion of male escorts and/or prostition has not changed.

The recent extremely negative threads concerning Aaron Lawrence on

http://www.DataLounge.com - a gay site, confirm that fact. (Although Aaron can be his own worst enemy by responding to some of the comments). However,I am very impressed with the quality of discusion on this site. And yes, the ratings of the posters have helped, much to my surprise. If someone had quilt feelings about hiring escorts, this site should do a lot to getting rid of the guilt. It would be interesting to forcast the situation 10/20 from now.

[NASAguy]

In this case, I tend to agree with Picwick concerning the general consensus among society at large and the gay community in particular concerning their view of prostitutes (I am purposely using a generic term here because I do not believe either of these groups makes any distinction between street hustlers and escorts).

Prior to my acquaintance with this site about 2 years ago, I too shared a very naive perception that the hiring of prostitutes was something that one did, if at all, in secret and was strictly for the purpose of quick, anonymous sex.

This site has opened my eyes to an entire new way of thinking about prostitution, and in particular, escorting (a term I am using to describe a relationship that goes beyond the mere providing of sexual release but includes the provision when, when desired, of emotional, intellectual and physical support and which is not anonymous and may evolve into extended relationships). I am not ashamed to be an escort client. In fact, I would be proud to include many of the escorts I have met in family gathering. I believe they are men of the highest caliber.

So, yes, I believe this site and others similar have done a great deal to raise the level of acceptance for members of the escorting profession. However, the impact is limited to those who have visited the site and seen the light...a very small number unfortunately in comparison to the population as a whole.

[Guest sdmuscl4hire]

Sad but true Pic

[Will]

What matters is what we think of ourselves, not what other people think of us. And in that regard, my self-esteem kicks up a notch practically every time I check in here. Thanks to HooBoy, escorts, and their clients, I am, quite frankly, much, much healthier than I was before I discovered the charms of this site about two years ago.

 

Even so, and like Pickwick, I don't know of any empirical evidence that would support the claim that attitudes towards prostitution among gay men are changing one way or the other. It's my anecdotal sense, however, that they aren't. But it's also my impression that the number of visitors to this site seems to be on the rise. One can only hope that some of those visitors will ally themselves with those of us who are developing attitudes towards this subject that we might not have had the chance to develop without this site.

 

Whatever happens on M4M, I think it's unlikely that the client/escort phenomenon is going to become a prominent fixture of whatever you want to call "gay popular culture." Just as among the majority, so among gay people it is primarily youth who set the tone of erotic norms for the wider public: who's hot and not; what's hot and not; what's cool, what's gross, what's in between. (For an example of what I mean by "erotic norms for the wider public," witness the recent flutters in the henhouse about CK's latest incarnation of the Underwear God.)

 

With some exceptions, young gay men who are as serious as their straight friends about taking care of themselves sexually are not likely clients for escorts. Why? Because they can't afford it; because they don't need to afford it; because it's a matter of pride. Whatever the reason, men who read Genre and Out and the like are not good client material. Therefore, the status of prostitution is probably of little interest to the great majority of out gay men in their twenties, thirties, and forties.

 

Things change in middle age, mostly for the better but not entirely. It's my hunch that the majority of regular posters on this site are much more likely to read The New Yorker than Genre, are more likely to be able to discuss current opera singers than current rock stars, and have discovered that a hard day at the office doesn't bode well for clubbing in the evening. Maybe on the weekends for some forty-somethings, even fifty-somethings. But I'd be surprised if anybody over sixty spends a whole lot of time in loose-fitting public fora where gay men hang out. Even if they did, I can't imagine that they'd feel welcome.

 

Having been there and done that myself, I can tell you something quite bluntly: I don't give a rat's ass what anybody -- straight or gay -- thinks about escorts and clients. I've recently stated elsewhere on this board what both groups of men have meant and still do mean to me.

[Bilbo]

One piece of anecdotal evidence that attitudes might be changing was seen last Friday in the eclipse, a regional gay newspaper appealing to the bar set. In a full page comic strip, one middle aged gay man suggests to another that he hire an escort. The joke came with the man's mother showing up with a plate of homemade food, just before the escort, at 1AM! Showed basically that you had to have some totally unforeseen calamity in order to botch hiring one.